


Oral Hygiene in a Zombie Apocalypse

by sansjoshiki



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Fluff and Crack, M/M, no powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 03:05:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9696941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sansjoshiki/pseuds/sansjoshiki
Summary: Tilting Bucky’s head back a little, he asked, “May I kiss you?”“I'd like that,” Bucky murmured, “but first, when was the last time you brushed your teeth?”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [velleities](https://archiveofourown.org/users/velleities/gifts).



> Surprise! Happy Valentine's, Beta! 
> 
> Unbeta'd as a result. Oh dear.

“It was the cockroach in the bidet that led to his death.”

Steve squinted at Bucky. Shaking his head, he said, “Nope. Don't believe you. You're pulling my leg.”

“No, ‘strue!” Bucky said through a laugh. “Ok, lemme walk ya through it again. The would-be killer was found with his head bashed in and a bullet in the thigh, right?”

“Yeah, but a roach couldn't have done all that! That's ludicrous!”

“Eyy, I didn't say the roach did him in, did I! Just hear me out, will ya!”

Steve's response to Bucky’s mock glare was a pained eye roll and a wave of a hand for him to proceed.

They had met barely an hour before, but Bucky had a sneaky suspicion Steve was a perennial interrupter, given the pugnacious - and, Bucky thought, rugged as heck - set of his lightly bearded jawline. Staring him in the eye and silently daring him to interrupt, Bucky resumed. “Ok. So, he'd probably been hiding out in his mark's john. From samples _what now_!”

Steve had dissolved into a fit of giggles. Eyes widening comically at the noise he was making, he clamped both hands over his mouth like a child - an overgrown, manly man _child_ \- who'd been caught uttering a swear word, but then parted them a little to squeak out, “Mark’s _john_!”

It was Bucky's turn to roll his eyes. “How's that even funny!” He wasn't annoyed in the least, but brought his impressive eyebrows together in a glower just for show. The blond looked adorable with his shoulders quaking and his eyes squished shut behind the black frames of his glasses. And tears, actual tears, were squeezing their way out of the corners.

Bucky felt sure that in another lifetime, Steve's laugh would have been a loud, projectile bray, puncturing the fine summer mid-morning there on the steps leading up to the Lincoln Memorial. Perhaps, and Bucky thought it quite possible, Steve would be a thigh slapper, or a pec grabber, head flung back as he hee-hawed loud and long. He smiled at the charmingly hilarious image his mind's eye provided.

Today though, Steve needed both hands to prevent the wheezing squeaks from carrying.

“Such a child. What’re you, six?” He tried but failed to keep the corners of his mouth from rising when Steve shook his head and cheeped, “ _Four_!” Chuckling, he turned in his place on the step to face Steve.

“May I continue?”

Steve nodded vigorously. Unclamping his mouth, he wiped his eyes with the heels of his palms and took a couple of deep breaths. His face was flushed from laughing, with redder spots over the line of his beard where the sides of his hands had left print marks. To Bucky, he looked like a fuzzy pink peach with features. 

“Okay?” He said this with a stern raised eyebrow which Steve nodded innocently at. “Okay. So, he'd been hiding in the mark’s jo- _toilet_.” Steve bit down on both lips and sat up with his hands clasped round his knees.

Shaking his head fondly, Bucky went on. “So, from samples taken from the toilet bowl and the bidet, we knew he'd gone Number Two.” Bucky chuckled at the way Steve, lips still firmly between teeth, crinkled his nose in mild disgust. “And in the bidet, we found a dead cockroach with its head skooshed in. So through deductive reasoning, yes, yes, ” he raised a finger at the retort he just knew was coming, “through intelligent _guessing_ , we worked out that the guy had to’ve been washing himself up in the dark, heard a skittering in the porcelain, turned on his flashlight, which we found under the sink by the way, saw the roach, leapt up probably in surprise, whipped out his gun and whacked the roach on the head with the butt - _do NOT_ _start, Steve!_ \- accidentally pulling on the trigger and shooting himself in the thigh and hitting his femoral artery. He then lost his footing, fell and cracked his skull open on the bathtub.”

“And that, to answer your request that I relate an interesting case, was how we solved the death of the hired gunman who offed himself by accident in the john of his mark.”

Steve made to whistle but catching himself, pursed his lips instead.

“Wow, Buck, that's quite something. Were you inspired to choose that one case in particular by our friend?” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the expired cockroach lying on its back on the step behind them, its six segmented legs sticking up towards the heavens. Guilty as charged, Bucky nodded with a grin.

A pretty pink tongue peeked out between perfectly white teeth. Even as he felt a flutter in his chest, he wondered how Bucky kept them looking so clean.

Leaning towards him with a smile of his own, Steve reached out to finger the pinned-up left sleeve of Bucky’s utility jacket. “Did you lose it in the line of duty?” he asked, surprising himself with his candor. He did want to know, but wondered if he'd crossed a line. The wistful smile on Bucky's face made him feel worse. 

“Nah.” The subdued way Bucky said this had Steve kicking himself. 

“Last August, nine months ago. In the exodus from New York? Fell off a train. And onto the tracks of an oncoming train. A coupla inches to the left and we wouldn't be sitting here together. Lucky I guess.”

His melancholic tone had all of Steve's protective instincts firing. He scootched closer and wrapped a comforting arm around his new friend. Again, he was surprised at the liberties he'd been taking with Bucky. An hour or so earlier, he wouldn't have thought himself capable. But there was a special ease he felt with him, as though they'd known each other forever. 

There was also the butterfly in his chest that quivered deliciously whenever the brunet turned his mesmerizing opal blue eyes on Steve.

“What about you?” Bucky leaned against his shoulder. The butterfly did a full-body shimmy at the pleasant weight. “What did you do before The World Went To Shit?” He enunciated it in such a way that Steve could practically hear the ™ tacked to it.

Steve knew he had nothing to feel embarrassed about his past, but he hummed and hawed for a few moments before Bucky started poking him in the ribs.

“Ouch, man!” He grabbed hold of Bucky's fingers. “Alright! Jeez, I'll tell ya!”

He was blushing. Could feel the heat in his cheeks. Knew that he was moments away from looking like a boiled lobster. So with a deep breath, he said as nonchalantly as he could, “I was a copywriter.”

Looking sideways at Bucky, he witnessed the rise of an eyebrow. He wondered if criminals had been intimidated into making confessions by it.

Swiveling his eyes to the Reflecting Pool that stretched before them and indeed, living up to its name and mirroring  the clear blue sky, he mumbled, “Ah… and I also wrote. Fanfiction. I wrote fanfiction.”

He'd told _nobody_ else that, pre- or post-Event. Nobody from his past life had suspected that he, seemingly straight laced Steve, would sit up at night cackling as he wove steamy scenes of favorite characters doing the do.

A happy gasp at his side drew a confused sound from him. Bucky sat back up with awe on his face.

“Yeah? Like what, on AO3?” At Steve's stunned look, Bucky asked excitedly, “Which fandom?”

“You know about all that?”

Bucky huffed at Steve's incredulous tone of voice.

“Yeeah? I _love_ fanfics! Wish I'd gotten my favorites printed before the electricity went. I liked Hannibal, Star Wars and Star Trek fics, but I was really partial to Merlin, especially Mert-“

Steve tightened his hold on Bucky's hand. “Merthur? M/M pairings? That was my fandom! My pseud was Brooklyn-"

“Babe?! That- you were one of my favorites!” Bucky gaped, eyebrows raised nearly to his hairline. "I thought you were a woman!" He gripped Steve’s thigh. "‘The Green King’, ‘Dragon Song’ and ‘Love in the Time of Magic’ are my all-time favorites!” he squealed, albeit not loudly. 

Steve was staggered by a sudden profound yet unnameable emotion. If asked to define, he might say it felt like the first sip of ice cold beer after a long day at work in his former stuffy, windowless office, or like waking up in the morning refreshed after a sound sleep on a firm mattress. Or like seeing the world with clarity again when his missing spectacles were found and back on his bridge where they belonged.

Simple things, but _needful_ things.

Lifting his hand, he ran his knuckles along Bucky's cheek before cupping it gently. The former cop - undercover detective, Steve imagined; Bucky looked the role now, with his shoulder-length hair and scruff that was ten five o’clock shadows' old - looked up at him through thick lashes and turned his cheek a little into Steve's palm.

Steve wondered how their quick friendship had escalated stealthily into whatever it was that was happening between them. He decided  he was going to run with it. 

A little nervous, but reminding himself he was a man who at one time had written marathon love-making sessions between a wizard and his once-and-future king, Steve forged on.

Tilting Bucky’s head back a little, he asked, “May I kiss you?” Steve thought he must be in love when Bucky's lips parted in the sweetest smile. 

“I'd like that,” Bucky murmured, “but first, when was the last time you brushed your teeth?”

Steve, already nose-to-nose with the man, blinked and then jerked back in mortification. “Oh! Oh no I'm so sorry! Is my breath that bad? It's just I… I keep forgetting toothpaste, and I never thought I'd find someone I'd want to… “

Bucky slid his hand up Steve's shoulder and to the back of his neck. “Hey, hey now. 'S not you. 'S just,” he gave a helpless shrug, “I have this phobia of dentists, and I make it a point never to have a reason to see one. Even now, when they are few and far between.”

Reaching down to his backpack one step below, he unzipped a side compartment and pulled out a small rectangular can which he passed to Steve to open.

It was a can of jujubes, which turned out to be filled with cloves instead. The aroma that wafted out was heady but pleasant and reminiscent of pungent Indian dinners at the restaurant near where he used to live. 

Picking one nail-shaped spice with his thumb and forefinger, Bucky said, “You chew on it. It helps to kill the bad bacteria in the mouth. Wait, are you asthmatic? No? Ok, start with one.”

He held it up to Steve's lips which parted to accept it. Steve made it a point to lick the tips of Bucky’s digits and received in return a tiny bashful curling of lip corners.

He bit down on the clove and an intense flavor filled his mouth. Not unpleasant, but a little numbing.

Bucky studied his reaction. “Okay?” At Steve's nod, he picked out four more cloves and tapped Steve's mouth. “Open sesame.”

He placed them on Steve's tongue and brushed his thumb against the underside of the muscle as he withdrew his hand. He was rewarded with an immediate dilation of the blond’s blue eyes that started a percolating in his own nether regions.

“Hoo boy. Ok, chew. But chew _fast_ please,” he urged, dropping his hand again to Steve's thigh and giving it a meaningful squeeze.

Steve's chomping sped up and he'd almost finished swallowing when a movement over Bucky's shoulder caught his eye. He sucked in a sharp hiss.

“The fuck is that!”

Turning to face that direction, Bucky saw the figure which was about sixty yards away.

It had the weirdest lurch. It was more like a sidling waddle. Steve tried to place where he had seen something similar while to Bucky, it was a caricature of a dance move he'd seen in the music video ‘Thriller’ as a child. He'd watched Michael Jackson gyrating often enough in it to now imagine that the undead thing was about to swing its hands up to chest level, fingers in claws, and do a pelvic thrust. The image was inordinately funny and he couldn't help but snortle.

The creature immediately swung its head in their direction and mindlessly began that waddle-sidle - the duck-crab, Bucky christened it then and there - towards them.

“Way to go, Buck,” Steve whispered. Still, neither he nor Bucky made any move to get up. From experience, they knew it would take the zombie a few minutes to reach them, let alone climb twelve steps before it could even chow down on them.

Especially this one. It was moving a little more sluggishly than regular zombies, which was saying something. They'd both learnt in their separate experiences to gauge by the momentum of the undead how fast they'd have to vamoose from the scene.  This one looked like it would take at least ten minutes to reach the foot of the staircase, which gave them ample time to observe it. 

Between the two of them, they'd seen all manner of the undead, and this one ranked up there with the ickiest.

The walker's skin, for one, had a peculiar orange tint to it. To Bucky and Steve, it looked like it had fallen into a tub of crushed Cheetos.

It was, going by appearances alone, perhaps male? It was hard to tell by facial features. This one had what looked like a face that had been sucking on a lemon when it died. And although it had on a pair of tighty-whities, now a saggy soiled gray and looking more like an adult diaper, its droopy breasts could have easily been man boobs. Its pear-shaped body was grotesquely fleshy, the flab of its waist and belly undulating as it moved as though there was an inner tube under its skin.

And its hair. There was something oddly, and quite disturbingly, familiar about the multidirectional comb-over styled into a mullet, the yellow of a decomposing corn husk.

“Buck, you don't think that's-”

“Dunno. Can't be. He's probably still holed up in some bunker somewhere."

It had duck-crabbed its way to about ten yards from them when they picked up on the moist, sucking sound emanating through  its putrescent lips

“Steve, I don't think I wanna get close to it to end it with my dagger.” Bucky said with a grimace. “That orange could be some sorta fungus.”

“Eww. No problem. Gimme a sec.”

Slotting the tin of cloves into the back pocket of his jeans, Steve retrieved his crossbow from where he'd reclined it next to him, and in one smooth move, aimed and fired. In the tranquil of the day, the arrow cut through the air with an audible _zinggg_ before it pierced the skull of the walker with a pulpy squelch. It made a sound similar to that of wet dough flung into a bowl of flour when it landed what was left of face-first on the ground.

They regarded it for a moment before shivering in unison.

" _Man_."

“Yeah. Let's get outta here, bud,” Steve said, getting to his feet. He heaved onto his shoulders his heavy backpack filled with supplies that had taken him a week of hitting over a dozen stores to amass, and waited while Bucky slung his carrier bag over his stump and hoisted his own backpack over his other shoulder. Steve admired how the broad-shouldered man carried the heavy bags with ease. Flitter-flutter went the butterfly.

All loaded up, Bucky turned to Steve. 

“So, we're gonna journey together, Stevie?”

“I'd really like that, Buck.”

“Think you can put up with my fussy oral hygiene standards?”

“I'd chew a whole clove tree for you.”

“Don't think that’d be a good idea. Might lead to seizures, among other things.”

“So you were trying to poison me just now?”

“ _Trying_?”

“Jerk.”

“Punk.”

“Can I kiss you now?”

“Gee, I dunno. _Can_ you?”

“ _May_ I kiss you now, Bucky?”

“Yes, please.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!  
> And don't forget to brush your teeth!


End file.
